ca/boot-installer/trouble.xml

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 <sect1 id="boot-troubleshooting">
 <title>Troubleshooting the Installation Process</title>
<para>
</para>

  <sect2 condition="supports-floppy-boot" id="unreliable-floppies">
  <title>Floppy Disk Reliability</title>

<para>

The biggest problem for people using floppy disks to install Debian
seems to be floppy disk reliability.

</para><para>

The boot floppy is the floppy with the worst problems, because it
is read by the hardware directly, before Linux boots.  Often, the
hardware doesn't read as reliably as the Linux floppy disk driver, and
may just stop without printing an error message if it reads incorrect
data. There can also be failures in the Driver Floppies most of which
indicate themselves with a flood of messages about disk I/O errors.

</para><para>

If you are having the installation stall at a particular floppy, the
first thing you should do is re-download the floppy disk image and
write it to a <emphasis>different</emphasis> floppy. Simply
reformatting the old
floppy may not be sufficient, even if it appears that the floppy was
reformatted and written with no errors. It is sometimes useful to try
writing the floppy on a different system.

</para><para>

One user reports he had to write the images to floppy
<emphasis>three</emphasis> times before one worked, and then
everything was fine with the third floppy.

</para><para>

Other users have reported that simply rebooting a few times with the
same floppy in the floppy drive can lead to a successful boot. This is
all due to buggy hardware or firmware floppy drivers.

</para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2><title>Boot Configuration</title>

<para>

If you have problems and the kernel hangs during the boot process,
doesn't recognize peripherals you actually have, or drives are not
recognized properly, the first thing to check is the boot parameters,
as discussed in <xref linkend="boot-parms"/>.

</para><para>

If you are booting with your own kernel instead of the one supplied
with the installer, be sure that <userinput>CONFIG_DEVFS</userinput> is set in
your kernel.  The installer requires
<userinput>CONFIG_DEVFS</userinput>.

</para><para>

Often, problems can be solved by removing add-ons and peripherals, and
then trying booting again.  <phrase arch="i386">Internal modems, sound
cards, and Plug-n-Play devices can be especially problematic.</phrase>

</para><para>

If you have a large amount of memory installed in your machine, more
than 512M, and the installer hangs when booting the kernel, you may
need to include a boot argument to limit the amount of memory the
kernel sees, such as <userinput>mem=512m</userinput>.

</para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 arch="i386" id="i386-boot-problems">
  <title>Common &arch-title; Installation Problems</title>
<para>

There are some common installation problems that can be solved or avoided by
passing certain boot parameters to the installer.

</para><para>

Some systems have floppies with <quote>inverted DCLs</quote>. If you receive
errors reading from the floppy, even when you know the floppy is good,
try the parameter <userinput>floppy=thinkpad</userinput>.

</para><para>

On some systems, such as the IBM PS/1 or ValuePoint (which have ST-506
disk drivers), the IDE drive may not be properly recognized.  Again,
try it first without the parameters and see if the IDE drive is
recognized properly.  If not, determine your drive geometry
(cylinders, heads, and sectors), and use the parameter
<userinput>hd=<replaceable>cylinders</replaceable>,<replaceable>heads</replaceable>,<replaceable>sectors</replaceable></userinput>.

</para><para>

If you have a very old machine, and the kernel hangs after saying
<computeroutput>Checking 'hlt' instruction...</computeroutput>, then
you should try the <userinput>no-hlt</userinput> boot argument, which
disables this test.

</para><para>

If your screen begins to show a weird picture while the kernel boots,
eg. pure white, pure black or colored pixel garbage, your system may
contain a problematic video card which does not switch to the
framebuffer mode properly.  Then you can use the boot parameter
<userinput>debian-installer/framebuffer=false</userinput> or
<userinput>video=vga16:off</userinput> to disable the framebuffer
console. Only the English
language will be available during the installation due to limited
console features. See <xref linkend="boot-parms"/> for details.

</para>

  <sect3>
  <title>System Freeze During the PCMCIA Configuration Phase</title>
<para>

Some laptop models produced by Dell are known to crash when PCMCIA device
detection tries to access some hardware addresses. Other laptops may display
similar problems. If you experience such a problem and you don't need PCMCIA
support during the installation, you can disable PCMCIA using the
<userinput>hw-detect/start_pcmcia=false</userinput> boot parameter. You can
then configure PCMCIA after the installation is completed and exclude the
resource range causing the problems.

</para><para>

Alternatively, you can boot the installer in expert mode. You will
then be asked to enter the resource range options your hardware
needs. For example, if you have one of the Dell laptops mentioned
above, you should enter <userinput>exclude port
0x800-0x8ff</userinput> here. There is also a list of some common
resource range options in the <ulink
url="http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-HOWTO-1.html#ss1.12">System
resource settings section of the PCMCIA HOWTO</ulink>. Note that you
have to omit the commas, if any, when you enter this value in the
installer.

</para>
   </sect3>

   <sect3>
   <title>System Freeze while Loading the USB Modules</title>
<para>

The kernel normally tries to install USB modules and the USB keyboard driver
in order to support some non-standard USB keyboards. However, there are some
broken USB systems where the driver hangs on loading. A possible workaround
may be disabling the USB controller in your mainboard BIOS setup. Another option
is passing the <userinput>debian-installer/probe/usb=false</userinput> parameter
at the boot prompt, which will prevent the modules from being loaded.

</para>
   </sect3>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="kernel-msgs">
  <title>Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages</title>

<para>

During the boot sequence, you may see many messages in the form
<computeroutput>can't find <replaceable>something</replaceable>
</computeroutput>, or <computeroutput>
<replaceable>something</replaceable> not present</computeroutput>,
<computeroutput>can't initialize <replaceable>something</replaceable>
</computeroutput>, or even <computeroutput>this driver release depends
on <replaceable>something</replaceable> </computeroutput>.
Most of these messages are harmless. You
see them because the kernel for the installation system is built to
run on computers with many different peripheral devices. Obviously, no
one computer will have every possible peripheral device, so the
operating system may emit a few complaints while it looks for
peripherals you don't own. You may also see the system pause for a
while. This happens when it is waiting for a device to respond, and
that device is not present on your system. If you find the time it
takes to boot the system unacceptably long, you can create a
custom kernel later (see <xref linkend="kernel-baking"/>).

</para>
  </sect2>


  <sect2 id="problem-report">
  <title>Bug Reporter</title>
<para>

If you get through the initial boot phase but cannot complete the
install, the bug reporter menu choice may be helpful. It copies system
error logs and configuration information to a user-supplied floppy.
This information may provide clues as to what went wrong and how to
fix it.  If you are submitting a bug report you may want to attach
this information to the bug report.

</para><para>

Other pertinent installation messages may be found in
<filename>/var/log/</filename> during the
installation, and <filename>/var/log/debian-installer/</filename>
after the computer has been booted into the installed system.

</para>
  </sect2>

  <sect2 id="submit-bug">
  <title>Submitting Installation Reports</title>
<para>

If you still have problems, please submit an installation report. We also
encourage installation reports to be sent even if the installation is
successful, so that we can get as much information as possible on the largest
number of hardware configurations. Please use this template when filling out
installation reports, and file the report as a bug report against the
"installation-reports" pseudo package, by sending it to
<email>submit@bugs.debian.org</email>.

<informalexample><screen>
Package: installation-reports

Debian-installer-version: &lt;Fill in date and from where you got the image&gt;
uname -a: &lt;The result of running uname -a on a shell prompt&gt;
Date: &lt;Date and time of the install&gt;
Method: &lt;How did you install?  What did you boot off?  If network
      install, from where?  Proxied?&gt;

Machine: &lt;Description of machine (eg, IBM Thinkpad R32)&gt;
Processor:
Memory:
Root Device: &lt;IDE?  SCSI?  Name of device?&gt;
Root Size/partition table: &lt;Feel free to paste the full partition
      table, with notes on which partitions are mounted where.&gt;
Output of lspci and lspci -n:

Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it

Initial boot worked:    [ ]
Configure network HW:   [ ]
Config network:         [ ]
Detect CD:              [ ]
Load installer modules: [ ]
Detect hard drives:     [ ]
Partition hard drives:  [ ]
Create file systems:    [ ]
Mount partitions:       [ ]
Install base system:    [ ]
Install boot loader:    [ ]
Reboot:                 [ ]

Comments/Problems:

&lt;Description of the install, in prose, and any thoughts, comments
      and ideas you had during the initial install.&gt;
</screen></informalexample>

In the bug report, describe what the problem is, including the last
visible kernel messages in the event of a kernel hang.  Describe the
steps that you did which brought the system into the problem state.

</para>
  </sect2>
 </sect1>
1	<!-- retain these comments for translator revision tracking -->
2	<!-- original version: 28672 untranslated -->
3
4	<sect1 id="boot-troubleshooting">
5	<title>Troubleshooting the Installation Process</title>
6	<para>
7	</para>
8
9	<sect2 condition="supports-floppy-boot" id="unreliable-floppies">
10	<title>Floppy Disk Reliability</title>
11
12	<para>
13
14	The biggest problem for people using floppy disks to install Debian
15	seems to be floppy disk reliability.
16
17	</para><para>
18
19	The boot floppy is the floppy with the worst problems, because it
20	is read by the hardware directly, before Linux boots. Often, the
21	hardware doesn't read as reliably as the Linux floppy disk driver, and
22	may just stop without printing an error message if it reads incorrect
23	data. There can also be failures in the Driver Floppies most of which
24	indicate themselves with a flood of messages about disk I/O errors.
25
26	</para><para>
27
28	If you are having the installation stall at a particular floppy, the
29	first thing you should do is re-download the floppy disk image and
30	write it to a <emphasis>different</emphasis> floppy. Simply
31	reformatting the old
32	floppy may not be sufficient, even if it appears that the floppy was
33	reformatted and written with no errors. It is sometimes useful to try
34	writing the floppy on a different system.
35
36	</para><para>
37
38	One user reports he had to write the images to floppy
39	<emphasis>three</emphasis> times before one worked, and then
40	everything was fine with the third floppy.
41
42	</para><para>
43
44	Other users have reported that simply rebooting a few times with the
45	same floppy in the floppy drive can lead to a successful boot. This is
46	all due to buggy hardware or firmware floppy drivers.
47
48	</para>
49	</sect2>
50
51	<sect2><title>Boot Configuration</title>
52
53	<para>
54
55	If you have problems and the kernel hangs during the boot process,
56	doesn't recognize peripherals you actually have, or drives are not
57	recognized properly, the first thing to check is the boot parameters,
58	as discussed in <xref linkend="boot-parms"/>.
59
60	</para><para>
61
62	If you are booting with your own kernel instead of the one supplied
63	with the installer, be sure that <userinput>CONFIG_DEVFS</userinput> is set in
64	your kernel. The installer requires
65	<userinput>CONFIG_DEVFS</userinput>.
66
67	</para><para>
68
69	Often, problems can be solved by removing add-ons and peripherals, and
70	then trying booting again. <phrase arch="i386">Internal modems, sound
71	cards, and Plug-n-Play devices can be especially problematic.</phrase>
72
73	</para><para>
74
75	If you have a large amount of memory installed in your machine, more
76	than 512M, and the installer hangs when booting the kernel, you may
77	need to include a boot argument to limit the amount of memory the
78	kernel sees, such as <userinput>mem=512m</userinput>.
79
80	</para>
81	</sect2>
82
83	<sect2 arch="i386" id="i386-boot-problems">
84	<title>Common &arch-title; Installation Problems</title>
85	<para>
86
87	There are some common installation problems that can be solved or avoided by
88	passing certain boot parameters to the installer.
89
90	</para><para>
91
92	Some systems have floppies with <quote>inverted DCLs</quote>. If you receive
93	errors reading from the floppy, even when you know the floppy is good,
94	try the parameter <userinput>floppy=thinkpad</userinput>.
95
96	</para><para>
97
98	On some systems, such as the IBM PS/1 or ValuePoint (which have ST-506
99	disk drivers), the IDE drive may not be properly recognized. Again,
100	try it first without the parameters and see if the IDE drive is
101	recognized properly. If not, determine your drive geometry
102	(cylinders, heads, and sectors), and use the parameter
103	<userinput>hd=<replaceable>cylinders</replaceable>,<replaceable>heads</replaceable>,<replaceable>sectors</replaceable></userinput>.
104
105	</para><para>
106
107	If you have a very old machine, and the kernel hangs after saying
108	<computeroutput>Checking 'hlt' instruction...</computeroutput>, then
109	you should try the <userinput>no-hlt</userinput> boot argument, which
110	disables this test.
111
112	</para><para>
113
114	If your screen begins to show a weird picture while the kernel boots,
115	eg. pure white, pure black or colored pixel garbage, your system may
116	contain a problematic video card which does not switch to the
117	framebuffer mode properly. Then you can use the boot parameter
118	<userinput>debian-installer/framebuffer=false</userinput> or
119	<userinput>video=vga16:off</userinput> to disable the framebuffer
120	console. Only the English
121	language will be available during the installation due to limited
122	console features. See <xref linkend="boot-parms"/> for details.
123
124	</para>
125
126	<sect3>
127	<title>System Freeze During the PCMCIA Configuration Phase</title>
128	<para>
129
130	Some laptop models produced by Dell are known to crash when PCMCIA device
131	detection tries to access some hardware addresses. Other laptops may display
132	similar problems. If you experience such a problem and you don't need PCMCIA
133	support during the installation, you can disable PCMCIA using the
134	<userinput>hw-detect/start_pcmcia=false</userinput> boot parameter. You can
135	then configure PCMCIA after the installation is completed and exclude the
136	resource range causing the problems.
137
138	</para><para>
139
140	Alternatively, you can boot the installer in expert mode. You will
141	then be asked to enter the resource range options your hardware
142	needs. For example, if you have one of the Dell laptops mentioned
143	above, you should enter <userinput>exclude port
144	0x800-0x8ff</userinput> here. There is also a list of some common
145	resource range options in the <ulink
146	url="http://pcmcia-cs.sourceforge.net/ftp/doc/PCMCIA-HOWTO-1.html#ss1.12">System
147	resource settings section of the PCMCIA HOWTO</ulink>. Note that you
148	have to omit the commas, if any, when you enter this value in the
149	installer.
150
151	</para>
152	</sect3>
153
154	<sect3>
155	<title>System Freeze while Loading the USB Modules</title>
156	<para>
157
158	The kernel normally tries to install USB modules and the USB keyboard driver
159	in order to support some non-standard USB keyboards. However, there are some
160	broken USB systems where the driver hangs on loading. A possible workaround
161	may be disabling the USB controller in your mainboard BIOS setup. Another option
162	is passing the <userinput>debian-installer/probe/usb=false</userinput> parameter
163	at the boot prompt, which will prevent the modules from being loaded.
164
165	</para>
166	</sect3>
167	</sect2>
168
169	<sect2 id="kernel-msgs">
170	<title>Interpreting the Kernel Startup Messages</title>
171
172	<para>
173
174	During the boot sequence, you may see many messages in the form
175	<computeroutput>can't find <replaceable>something</replaceable>
176	</computeroutput>, or <computeroutput>
177	<replaceable>something</replaceable> not present</computeroutput>,
178	<computeroutput>can't initialize <replaceable>something</replaceable>
179	</computeroutput>, or even <computeroutput>this driver release depends
180	on <replaceable>something</replaceable> </computeroutput>.
181	Most of these messages are harmless. You
182	see them because the kernel for the installation system is built to
183	run on computers with many different peripheral devices. Obviously, no
184	one computer will have every possible peripheral device, so the
185	operating system may emit a few complaints while it looks for
186	peripherals you don't own. You may also see the system pause for a
187	while. This happens when it is waiting for a device to respond, and
188	that device is not present on your system. If you find the time it
189	takes to boot the system unacceptably long, you can create a
190	custom kernel later (see <xref linkend="kernel-baking"/>).
191
192	</para>
193	</sect2>
194
195
196	<sect2 id="problem-report">
197	<title>Bug Reporter</title>
198	<para>
199
200	If you get through the initial boot phase but cannot complete the
201	install, the bug reporter menu choice may be helpful. It copies system
202	error logs and configuration information to a user-supplied floppy.
203	This information may provide clues as to what went wrong and how to
204	fix it. If you are submitting a bug report you may want to attach
205	this information to the bug report.
206
207	</para><para>
208
209	Other pertinent installation messages may be found in
210	<filename>/var/log/</filename> during the
211	installation, and <filename>/var/log/debian-installer/</filename>
212	after the computer has been booted into the installed system.
213
214	</para>
215	</sect2>
216
217	<sect2 id="submit-bug">
218	<title>Submitting Installation Reports</title>
219	<para>
220
221	If you still have problems, please submit an installation report. We also
222	encourage installation reports to be sent even if the installation is
223	successful, so that we can get as much information as possible on the largest
224	number of hardware configurations. Please use this template when filling out
225	installation reports, and file the report as a bug report against the
226	"installation-reports" pseudo package, by sending it to
227	<email>submit@bugs.debian.org</email>.
228
229	<informalexample><screen>
230	Package: installation-reports
231
232	Debian-installer-version: <Fill in date and from where you got the image>
233	uname -a: <The result of running uname -a on a shell prompt>
234	Date: <Date and time of the install>
235	Method: <How did you install? What did you boot off? If network
236	install, from where? Proxied?>
237
238	Machine: <Description of machine (eg, IBM Thinkpad R32)>
239	Processor:
240	Memory:
241	Root Device: <IDE? SCSI? Name of device?>
242	Root Size/partition table: <Feel free to paste the full partition
243	table, with notes on which partitions are mounted where.>
244	Output of lspci and lspci -n:
245
246	Base System Installation Checklist:
247	[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
248
249	Initial boot worked: [ ]
250	Configure network HW: [ ]
251	Config network: [ ]
252	Detect CD: [ ]
253	Load installer modules: [ ]
254	Detect hard drives: [ ]
255	Partition hard drives: [ ]
256	Create file systems: [ ]
257	Mount partitions: [ ]
258	Install base system: [ ]
259	Install boot loader: [ ]
260	Reboot: [ ]
261
262	Comments/Problems:
263
264	<Description of the install, in prose, and any thoughts, comments
265	and ideas you had during the initial install.>
266	</screen></informalexample>
267
268	In the bug report, describe what the problem is, including the last
269	visible kernel messages in the event of a kernel hang. Describe the
270	steps that you did which brought the system into the problem state.
271
272	</para>
273	</sect2>
274	</sect1>